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Jane Eyre - by Charlotte BronteExcerpt 3

I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great
a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand,
inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands
with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a
bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to
the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in
the breakfast-room.

I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if
Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed
the nursery-door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three
months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted
so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms
were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.

I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room
door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable
little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of
me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared
to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated
hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided
me; I MUST enter.